RESUMO
Objective:To investigate the distribution of aldose reductase (AR) C-106T genetic polymorphism in Chinese Han population and its association with the risk for essential hypertension (EH).Methods:The AR C-106T polymorphism was genotyped in 148 Chinese EH patients and 137controls by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP).The genotype distribution between groups was contrasted by x2- test and the degree of genetic association was evaluated by 95％ confidence interval (CI).Results:Frequency of the variant AR C-106T allele was 13.9％ (95％ CI:11.2％-16.6％) in the controls,which was significantly lower than that in the Japanese (18.4％ in 712 individuals,P=0.0063),the Australians (37.9％ in 240 individuals,P＜0.0001) and the Brazilians (34.7％ in 62individuals,P＜ 0.0001).The frequency ofAR C-106T allele was 11.7％ (95％ CI:7.9％-15.5％)in the EH patients.No significant difference in the allele frequency was observed between the EH patients and the controls (P=0.147).Conclusion:There is obvious racial difference in the distribution of AR C-106T polymorphism.The polymorphism is not associated with the risk for EH.